DeMar's Last Days Madness... What Did Tertullian Really Say?

When R.C. Sproul came out with his "The Last Days According to Jesus" many mainstream Reformed people all of a sudden became... "partial preterists." I admit, I did buy Sproul's book when it came out, and investigated many of the partial preterist writers. I was never fully persuaded by their argumentation, particularly since post-millenialism appears to be the logical next step. I've been assured by many it's not, but it is odd the leading partial preterist voices are post-millennial.

I like partial preterist Gary DeMar. I have his books, a recording somewhere of him debating Dave Hunt, and I get Gary's perpetual spam email that comes about five times a day.  This morning I pulled out my copy of DeMar's  Last Days Madness (Atlanta: American Vision, 1999).   I read this a long time ago, and haven't thumbed through this book in many years. I flipped open the first page of chapter one and read the following quote from Tertullian:

Chapter One THE DATING GAME
Dip into any period of history and you will find prophets of all types, from any number of theological traditions, who claimed they knew when the next endtime event would occur. Some have pointed to the rise in apostasy, lawlessness, natural disasters, signs in the heavens, and an increase in rival religions in their day as unmistakable evidence that the end was near for them. Finding hidden meanings in biblical numbers was another favorite pastime that assured the faithful that the end had to be at hand.

In the second century, Tertullian, in Ad Nationes, wrote, "What terrible wars, both foreign and domestic! What pestilences, famines ... and quakings of the earth has history recorded!" Evaluating current events and concluding that they offer "compelling evidence" that Jesus would return soon has been a common practice among prophecy writers.

DeMar then goes on to quote Pope Gregory for further proof that "Last Days Madness" has been around a long time. I was just about to post this Tertullian quote in a comment box on another thread, but decided first to look it up. DeMar actually cites a secondary source for the quote: "Quoted in Carl Olof Jonsson and Wolfgang Herbst, The 'Sign' of the Last Days - When? (Atlanta, Ga: Commentary Press, 1987), ix." I'm not about to purchase a copy of this book, particularly since the context for this Tertullian quote isn't all that hard to track down. Read the following Tertullian quote in context, and notice what it actually says. Tertullian states,

Chapter IX.The Christians are Not the Cause of Public Calamities: There Were Such Troubles Before Christianity.


But why should I be astonished at your vain imputations? Under the same natural form, malice and folly have always been associated in one body and growth, and have ever opposed us under the one instigator of error Indeed, I feel no astonishment; and therefore, as it is necessary for my subject, I will enumerate some instances, that you may feel the astonishment by the enumeration of the folly into which you fall, when you insist on our being the causes of every public calamity or injury. If the Tiber has overflowed its banks, if the Nile has remained in its bed, if the sky has been still, or the earth been in commotion, if death has made its devastations, or famine its afflictions, your cry immediately is, “This is the fault of the Christians!” As if they who fear the true God could have to fear a light thing, or at least anything else (than an earthquake or famine, or such visitations). I suppose it is as despisers of your gods that we call down on us these strokes of theirs. As we have remarked already, three hundred years have not yet passed in our existence; but what vast scourges before that time fell on all the world, on its various cities and provinces! what terrible wars, both foreign and domestic! what pestilences, famines, conflagrations, yawnings, and quakings of the earth has history recorded! Where were the Christians, then, when the Roman state furnished so many chronicles of its disasters? Where were the Christians when the islands Hiera, Anaphe, and Delos, and Rhodes, and Cea were desolated with multitudes of men? or, again, when the land mentioned by Plato as larger than Asia or Africa was sunk in the Atlantic Sea? or when fire from heaven overwhelmed Volsinii, and flames from their own mountain consumed Pompeii? when the sea of Corinth was engulphed by an earthquake? when the whole world was destroyed by the deluge? Where then were (I will not say the Christians, who despise your gods, but) your gods themselves, who are proved to be of later origin than that great ruin by the very places and cities in which they were born, sojourned, and were buried, and even those which they founded? For else they would not have remained to the present day, unless they had been more recent than that catastrophe. If you do not care to peruse and reflect upon these testimonies of history, the record of which affects you differently from us,in order 118especially that you may not have to tax your gods with extreme injustice, since they injure even their worshippers on account of their despisers, do you not then prove yourselves to be also in the wrong, when you hold them to be gods, who make no distinction between the deserts of yourselves and profane persons? If, however, as it is now and then very vainly said, you incur the chastisement of your gods because you are too slack in our extirpation, you then have settled the question of their weakness and insignificance; for they would not be angry with you for loitering over our punishment, if they could do anything themselves,—although you admit the same thing indeed in another way, whenever by inflicting punishment on us you seem to be avenging them. If one interest is maintained by another party, that which defends is the greater of the two. What a shame, then, must it be for gods to be defended by a human being!

The way DeMar uses it, one is left the image that Tertullian was commenting on it being the end of the world. Well maybe Tertullian did somewhere else, but he certainly isn't doing it here. In context, the quote refers to calamites that took place before the birth of Christianity. Note the immediate sentence which preceeds the quote DeMar used: "As we have remarked already, three hundred years have not yet passed in our existence; but what vast scourges before that time fell on all the world, on its various cities and provinces!"

I still like Gary DeMar, he makes some good points. But I did find it rather discouraging that the first quote of chapter one was cited out of context.

Addendum
Gary DeMar uses the Tertullian quote here as well: Billy Graham Association Goes Apocalyptic:

In the second century, Tertullian, in Ad Nationes, wrote, “What terrible wars, both foreign and domestic! What pestilences, famines … and quakings of the earth has history recorded!” Evaluating current events and concluding that they offer “compelling evidence” that Jesus would return soon has been a common practice among prophecy writers. In the sixth century, Pope Gregory assured the world that the return of Christ could not be far off since he claimed that so many prophecies were being fulfilled in his day [ Quoted in Carl Olof Jonsson and Wolfgang Herbst, The “Sign” of the Last Days—When? (Atlanta, GA: Commentary Press, 1987), ix].